PKT:Secret Trad#1 - Study Group

[Abrac]

In Waite's quote that I quoted from line 17 he says ". . . and it is in the combination of these types [that is the tarot trumps]—if anywhere—that it presents Secret Doctrine."

Levi also says (according to Mackenzie) ". . . he had arrived at the various inductions there published by means of the combinations presented by the twenty-two cards of the Tarot."

I find it interesting that Waite and Levi both believed that it's in the combinations of the trumps that higher truths are revealed.

Waite also wrote in the last paragraph of the PKT, "Apart from all inheritance of this kind, let any one who is a mystic consider separately and in combination the Magician, the Fool, the High Priestess, the Hierophant, the Empress, the Emperor, the Hanged Man and the Tower. Let him then consider the card called the Last Judgment. They contain the legend of the soul."

The Bible story you're looking for is in Genesis 11.

 

[Richard]

.....ok, I don't have a bible, so I don't where to look for this, but I do recall in Babylonian time, God punished ? man, by taking (Gods language) from man, so he can nolonger speak it, and made every man speak in different languages, so that they could not understand each other......

That is the Tower of Babel story. Some people identify the Tarot Trump 16 (Tower, La Maison Dieu) with the Tower of Babel. The Creator God loses his cool when he thinks people are getting too ambitious, so he zaps them (as in the stories of the Fall and the Tower of Babel).

There are free online ebook Bibles, such as this.

 

[INIVEA]

In Waite's quote that I quoted from line 17 he says ". . . and it is in the combination of these types [that is the tarot trumps]—if anywhere—that it presents Secret Doctrine."

Levi also says (according to Mackenzie) ". . . he had arrived at the various inductions there published by means of the combinations presented by the twenty-two cards of the Tarot."

I find it interesting that Waite and Levi both believed that it's in the combinations of the trumps that higher truths are revealed.

Waite also wrote in the last paragraph of the PKT, "Apart from all inheritance of this kind, let any one who is a mystic consider separately and in combination the Magician, the Fool, the High Priestess, the Hierophant, the Empress, the Emperor, the Hanged Man and the Tower. Let him then consider the card called the Last Judgment. They contain the legend of the soul."

The Bible story you're looking for is in Genesis 11.

Thanks, I find this interesting, Combinations (inductions)

the Magician (communication), The fool (communication), The High Priestess (communication), The Hierophant (communication), The Empress ( communication), the Emperor (Communication), The Hanged Man (communication) The Tower (communication), and Finally The Last Judgment (communication) They contain the legend of the Soul (They contain the Communication of the Soul). All these cards represent communication in different forms.

Inductions ~ Electricity, Magnetism. the process by which a body having electric or magnetic properties produces magnetism, an electric charge, or an electromotive force in a neighboring body without contact.
Compare electromagnetic induction, electrostatic induction.

That is how I see it anyways. What do you think?

 

[INIVEA]

That is the Tower of Babel story. Some people identify the Tarot Trump 16 (Tower, La Maison Dieu) with the Tower of Babel. The Creator God loses his cool when he thinks people are getting too ambitious, so he zaps them (as in the stories of the Fall and the Tower of Babel).

There are free online ebook Bibles, such as this.

Interesting, that there are 2 stories, that God takes his Language from man. What's your thoughts on this?

Thanks for the link. I'll checking it out this evening. lol a non believer reading the bible tonight lmbo.

 

[Richard]

Interesting, that there are 2 stories, that God takes his Language from man. What's your thoughts on this?

Thanks for the link. I'll checking it out this evening. lol a non believer reading the bible tonight lmbo.

I don't think that "God takes his language from man" is exactly what happened in the Tower of Babel legend. The problem was that everybody spoke the same language, so God thought they could thereby act as a powerful unit and accomplish whatever they wanted to do. So he made it so that they were speaking a bunch of different languages and couldn't understand each other, so they split up into different groups and could no longer act as a single unit. This legend supposedly accounts for all the different languages in the world.

The Fall story was a different deal. It didn't have anything to do with language.

Presumably God's language was Hebrew. It was long after the time of these tales that Hebrew gradually became a "forgotten" language, but it was preserved by isolated groups of scholars and was eventually restored.

 

[Abrac]

As far as "the soul's legend," I found something interesting in the book Hermetic Papers of A.E. Waite, "The Tarot and the Rosy Cross." (c. 1910) He's talking about the tarot trumps and their allocation to the paths on the Tree of Life; he says, "They are memorials of the soul’s legend, of her quest and the way of attainment."

From other of Waite's references I found concerning the legend, or legends--he uses both--of the soul, he talks about it in the sense of old stories passed down through the generations, or myths. The legends of the soul appear to be part of the Secret Doctrine and have been transmitted secretly, or behind veils of symbolism. It's not simply the soul's history, but "of her quest and the way of attainment." as he puts it above.

 

[Teheuti]

I find Waite's comment in line 17 fairly interesting,

"It is also the most catholic, because it is not, by attribution or otherwise, a derivative of any one school or literature of occultism; it is not of Alchemy or Kabalism or Astrology or Ceremonial Magic; but, as I have said, it is the presentation of universal ideas by means of universal types, and it is in the combination of these types —if anywhere—that it presents Secret Doctrine."​

It doesn't sound like he's saying Secret Doctrine can't be found in Alchemy, Astrology, Kabalism, etc.; but that it's not limited to just one branch. The Secret Doctrine is universal and transcends all systems. It does sound like he's saying the tarot is the most "pure" symbolism as it is itself universal in nature.

The lower case word catholic does not refer to the religion. Its definition is simply "universal."

I'd paraphrase Sentence 17 as:
The Tarot is the most universal as it does not derive from alchemy, etc. Rather, it is [purely] archetypal and, when these universal archetypes are combined [like in sentences] it presents the Secret Doctrine.

I don't have my resources here but in Waite's book on Divination, writing as Grand Orient, he demonstrates such a combination when he does a spiritual reading of all 22 Greater Trumps that have been shuffled and laid out in a line.

 

[Teheuti]

Inductions ~ Electricity, Magnetism. the process by which a body having electric or magnetic properties produces magnetism, an electric charge, or an electromotive force in a neighboring body without contact.
Compare electromagnetic induction, electrostatic induction.

Re the Mackenzie quote that uses the word "inductions," like I said earlier it is worth looking up these words in a 19th century British dictionary, like the word "catholic" that I mentioned before. The OED gives the first meaning of "induction" as a conclusion reached through "the process of inferring or verifying a general law or principle from the observation of particular instances." And gives the example: "Induction is the inference from the particular to the general, from the known to the unknown."

"Catholic," BTW, is from the Greek katholikos meaning general, universal, from kata=in respect of + holos=the whole. When Waite uses the word with the lower case "c" he means it in this way.

 

[INIVEA]

I don't think that "God takes his language from man" is exactly what happened in the Tower of Babel legend. The problem was that everybody spoke the same language, so God thought they could thereby act as a powerful unit and accomplish whatever they wanted to do. So he made it so that they were speaking a bunch of different languages and couldn't understand each other, so they split up into different groups and could no longer act as a single unit. This legend supposedly accounts for all the different languages in the world.

The Fall story was a different deal. It didn't have anything to do with language.

Presumably God's language was Hebrew. It was long after the time of these tales that Hebrew gradually became a "forgotten" language, but it was preserved by isolated groups of scholars and was eventually restored.

Ok I did a little reading of the bible, personal opinions of the bible I will keep to myself (non believer here).

In the beginning God spoke (said) let there be ........

(This is energy communication (word/logos) Gods hidden language, Gods hidden knowledge, Gods hidden Law (God = Energy)

10:8 And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth.
10:9 He was a mighty hunter before the LORD: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD.
10:10 And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.
10:32 These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood.
11:1 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.

Nimrod Summerian and the language of Sumer, and he spoke the Sumerian language

so if you were to retrace the lineage of Nimrod to Noah back to Adam to God, then they spoke Sumerian, not Hebrew. The written language at the time, and is the oldest written language is cuneiform (script)

There goes the kabbalah right out the window, In my personal opinion. so much for that correspondence.

ETA: So IMO the 22 Major Arcana should by rights follow the Sumerian (Alpha bet letters) not (Hebrew Letters)

 

[Richard]

......The OED gives the first meaning of "induction" as a conclusion reached through "the process of inferring or verifying a general law or principle from the observation of particular instances." And gives the example: "Induction is the inference from the particular to the general, from the known to the unknown."

That's the standard usage of the term in science and mathematics.

"Catholic," BTW, is from the Greek katholikos meaning general, universal, from kata=in respect of + holos=the whole. When Waite uses the word with the lower case "c" he means it in this way.

Catholic, meaning universal, is still in fairly common usage. In the Anglican Church, the words "I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy catholic Church, etc...." are used in the Apostle's Creed. Note the lower case c. (The Anglican Church is, of course, Protestant, not Catholic.)